Monument record BSE 442 - Medieval features, 19-20 Abbeygate Street, Bury St Edmunds

The site stripping and the excavation of several large stanchions to support a building conversion and the infilling of an open yard at No.20 Abbeygate Street were archaeologically recorded by a combination of excavation and monitoring. The work took place behind the Georgian House which occupies the street frontage. A total of eighteen pits (including at least three ovens) were identified in an area a little over 30 square metres with the majority dating from the 12th to 15th centuries. Many of these run beneath the timber extensions that began to appear from the 16th century and the ovens in the yard may well have been replaced by a kitchen extension (a Victorian range was extant in the middle extension when building work began). The size of the open yard was further reduced when a drain, built of mortar and with a peg tile base, was constructed alongside the neighbouring property to the east where it probably directed water, from an extension towards Abbeygate Street (the drain is likely to have ran either between two street front properties or beneath a covered passageway between the two). The timber extensions were retained when a single Georgian House was built over two medieval properties (No. 19 - 20) although the division has been reinstated in more recent times (S1). Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2014 (S2).